My friends planned a fun little field trip for the kids. We toured a local pizza shop, Pizza Rita. The kids helped make a couple pizzas, mix dough and they got to see how it all works. They were all really happy and engaged! It was cute. And then just after 10 in the morning, the kids all ate pizza and drank sodas! It was a dream come true.

This was a fun two-step art project. First we covered a piece of cardstock completely with crayon. Then we painted over it with india ink mixed with a bit of dish soap. After that dried, we scratched our designs with nails. 

To celebrate the end of 2 weeks of learning Spanish, we picked up some ice cream on the way home from a shop that Greta wanted to go to. We bought overpriced (200 pesos for 4!), but delicious ice cream and enjoyed our sunny walk home. Holly looked so colorful with her piñata, green ice cream, purple sunglasses and blue dress, I had to take a picture! Ice cream immediately before lunch or dinner... when you're in Mexico, yes!

On Friday, we completed our two weeks of Spanish lessons. I go back and forth between feeling great because I've made progress and feeling completely deflated because how on earth am I going to master this language full of so many words?! I love Spanish and I want to speak it well! With time and work, I'll get there. Conor and I really enjoyed being in the same class and I adored our teacher Eliel. We had so many laughs with him. He was great! 

The girls loved their classes as well. Each week they had a third student in their classes, both were 8 year old girls. I'm not sure how much new Spanish they learned, however they love Spanish! The last day of school, Holly and Greta decorated piñatas their teacher had made. The piñatas turned out so cute! I absolutely adore them! 

Later this week, we leave for Oaxaca, Mexico and we will be there for a month! We're pretty excited and feeling pretty lucky that we have this opportunity. Homeschool perks for sure! We booked this trip only about 2 months ago and haven't had as much time to prepare for it as we did for Ecuador. After Christmas, I borrowed a bunch of books about Mexico from the library, and we did a bunch of cactus art. The art was so much fun, but my kiddos may be sick of cacti! We made cacti with white glue dyed black, watercolor paint and tissue paper flowers. We made cacti cut from construction paper and drew the prickles on with permanent marker. We made cacti with hand prints and used our fingers to make the flowers (Maeve did this one too!). And lastly, we made cacti with shaving cream and food dye swirled together and then pressed on watercolor paper. The shaving cream one was the favorite, but the black glue one was a close second! I love all this wonderful, vibrant cactus art hanging up at the back table! I can't wait to go to the Botanical Gardens in Oaxaca and see all the plants! We read a couple of great books about the Saguaro Cactus, and while I'm not sure we will see any in person, they are so fascinating! 

We're in the flurry of packing and getting ready for this trip. All the nerves and butterflies and worries about the flight are setting in. We're all pretty excited! One month is going to fly by! 

Maeve was very interested in playing the shaving cream and was pleased to swirl some around on a tray herself, but she doesn't like getting anything on her hands such as shaving cream. Crumbs and yogurt are also included in the list of things she doesn't like on her hands!

Here are the links to the different cactus art projects:
Black Glue Cactus
3D Paper Cactus
Handprint Cactus
Shaving Cream Cactus